Modern day slave labour

[Psychosplodge]

Work Placements (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21426928) break labour and minimum wage laws.

Can't believe finally seen a common sense judgement form the judiciary, I don't understand why it needed to go to appeal though and wasn't struck down in the original case.

If I'd worked thirty hours on a placement I'd expect thirty hours pay...

[Mr Mystery]

I know! Shocking huh!

I kind of agree with the concept of the programme though, get people into work to develop some skills. But the execution has been immoral, and I would say counterproductive. After all, how many of us have worked thankless, dead end jobs, with the sole reason being that pay check at the end of the month? Without that, all you're likely to think is 'hard work is hard, dole is not. I r live on dole'. Rejig it so they are paid the standard company rate for their work, offset by their dole handout (has to be something in it for the business after all). End result? 'Hard work is hard, but I have more monies. Perhaps I do more hard work'. At least in theory.

[Wolfshade]

Is community service slave labour?

Damn it my trainers are still too expensive, lets get some more yooofs to have work placements...

[Psychosplodge]

It is if it's mandatory and not voluntary yes.

As Mystery says, you don't stack shelves for the skills and experience you do it for the pay.
And what's to stop them having a fresh set every month? It's either taking money out the pockets of existing staff or taking paid jobs away from potential new staff.

[energongoodie]

My industry is built on work experience. That's is just how it is now. I was lucky and only did about 6 weeks of unpayed work before I started getting paid.
I personally think it work's well for us. It seperates out the muppets form the determined people and then we give the good ones a job when we can.

[Psychosplodge]

I can't agree with it. If you're working you should be getting paid. This is another dodgy american import.

[Wolfshade]

I was being flippant :)

Now if we could force job seekers to complete so many hours of forced labour to get their benefits.
Actually, if we did that then the company that has them could pay some or part of the benefit as they get staff.
Oh and we could make it a sliding scale so the amount of benefit they get is based on hours worked.
...

[Psychosplodge]

I think there's other issues as well, I certainly wouldn't be happy if they were expecting me to do "community service" on some of our sink estates, I simply wouldn't feel safe enough to do it.

[Wolfshade]

I think work experiance is a good thing.
I do not think stacking shelves is good work experiance.
The difficulty is trying to force people to expand their skill set.
The idea I think was a good one (people without relevant experiance find it hard to get a job, lets enable us to give them that experiance), but the implemenation was poor.
Unfortunately, the "good" experiance places are rather limited, and those motivated individuals would have already arranged them for themselves.

[Denzark]

You say 'if I stack shelves for 30 hours I expect 30 hours pay' - but on the flip side, if you get (insert dole figure here) and divide it by national minimum wage, do you expect to work that amount of hours for it? Or do you sit at home watching Jeremy Kyle and eating cheetos?

Admittedly the shelf stacking whatever is a bit pointelss for a graduate - yes that stops a person getting paid for that job, yes she might have been better in her local musuem as a volunteer. But that doesn't mean a long term unemployed would also have been better not shelf stacking - half the problem with long term unemployed, as mentioned in numerous academic studies - is getting back into the work ethic - what these work placements are directed at.

So can the DWP discriminate between hoity toity graduates and sink estate chavs, and make the former work in a set of lavendar tea rooms, and the latter in TK Maxx? No, they need a one size fits all.

No one on benefits should begrudge some form of work to compensate society for their largesse, especially if they have not been paying NI stamps - such as this graduate.

[Psychosplodge]

I can see your point, and one day a week in a charity shop would about cover the weekly dole payment?

The DWP can't tell their arse from their elbow so I wouldn't expect them to be able to discriminate against anyone.

Example a friend of a friend was expected to attend a workplacement in Nottinghamshire that started at I think 6:30am which is fair enough.
but once you take into account where she lived, they were expected a 19 year old lass (who imo isn't the most worldly) to be wandering the streets of nottingham at about half five trying to use public transport...I certainly wouldn't want any daughter of mine doing that...

[energongoodie]

I think work experiance is a good thing.
I do not think stacking shelves is good work experiance.
The difficulty is trying to force people to expand their skill set.
The idea I think was a good one (people without relevant experiance find it hard to get a job, lets enable us to give them that experiance), but the implemenation was poor.
Unfortunately, the "good" experiance places are rather limited, and those motivated individuals would have already arranged them for themselves.

+1

[Deadlift]

1. Comparing being forced into work experience to keep job seekers to Slave labour is perhaps another fine example of the BBC and the media yet again making sensationalist comparisons. I'm sure any cotton picker from way back would have been much happier working in pound land.

2. It's obvious that company's like Pound land are going to abuse these back to work schemes in an attempt to gain short term free labour. Why employ someone when the government is going to force people to work for you at little to no cost to yourself. I hear you say "but it's free training" rubbish it's exploting a scheme to benefit business and not the unemployed. I listened to the person involved in this case today and I very much agree with what she had to say. She received no training at all and was stacking shelves. I'm sorry but who is benefitting from this ? Sure someone has to work in these stores, but that's by choice. From what I hear this young person was already giving 3 days a week to museum to gain experience in working the the field she wished to gain full time employment. This scheme took her away from that. Pointless.

3. As for the argument that the work is payed though benefits received is also garbage. We have minimum wage here in the UK for a reason. 30hours a week for less than £60 is below that wage. Sure if the company's in this scheme are willing to top up the JSA of an individual working with them, then the scheme could be seen to be less exploitive. It won't happen though.

[Psychosplodge]

1. Comparing being forced into work experience to keep job seekers to Slave labour is perhaps another fine example of the BBC and the media yet again making sensationalist comparisons. I'm sure any cotton picker from way back would have been much happier working in pound land.

Fair enough there is some hyperbole there, and less whips...

[Deadlift]

Hyperbole, sounds like a fun name for a European style supermarket.

[Psychosplodge]

Hyperbole, sounds like a fun name for a European style supermarket.

Or a yankee bowling alley?

[Wolfshade]

Hyperbole, sounds like a fun name for a European style supermarket.

Come to Hyperbole for all the 11 pin bowling action!

There are people who argue minimum wage isn't a good thing.

[Psychosplodge]

Yeah the ones paying people to work at it...

[Mr Mystery]

1. Comparing being forced into work experience to keep job seekers to Slave labour is perhaps another fine example of the BBC and the media yet again making sensationalist comparisons. I'm sure any cotton picker from way back would have been much happier working in pound land.

2. It's obvious that company's like Pound land are going to abuse these back to work schemes in an attempt to gain short term free labour. Why employ someone when the government is going to force people to work for you at little to no cost to yourself. I hear you say "but it's free training" rubbish it's exploting a scheme to benefit business and not the unemployed. I listened to the person involved in this case today and I very much agree with what she had to say. She received no training at all and was stacking shelves. I'm sorry but who is benefitting from this ? Sure someone has to work in these stores, but that's by choice. From what I hear this young person was already giving 3 days a week to museum to gain experience in working the the field she wished to gain full time employment. This scheme took her away from that. Pointless.

3. As for the argument that the work is payed though benefits received is also garbage. We have minimum wage here in the UK for a reason. 30hours a week for less than £60 is below that wage. Sure if the company's in this scheme are willing to top up the JSA of an individual working with them, then the scheme could be seen to be less exploitive. It won't happen though.

Bingo.

Have a biscuit. No, not a cookiee. Those are for the americans. We're british, so we have biscuits!

[Wolfshade]

Yeah the ones paying people to work at it...

Actually, no.

People should be paid the prices that the market can withstand, to do otherwise artificially inflates costs.

Imagine if we made minimum wage £100/hr, this is really good as minimum wage is brilliant!

But, what happens. Inflation, if you earn £100/hr, then the costs of things are going to rise, SAB Miller suggest that people are willing to work 30mins for a pint, so £50/pint it is, so we then have the rebalancing so £50 is what £3 was, 1666% inflation. So what he have done is nothing, well aside from put big smiles on people with mortgages faces, £100,000 mortgage is no devalued to £6000 in effect. Though obviously if you are a new buyer the cost of houses would jump by 1666%. The £ would rapidly fall against all other currencies to re-balance.

So what about a more modest increase what does this do.

Well one of two things (sometimes a combination of them)

1. The cost of the item/service goes up fractionally to absorb the cost again you have inflation concerns, given that this is just a UK wide thing, it makes UK business goods and services less competitive and drops orders, business closes and more unemployed.

2. An employer realising what occurs with 1. reduces their costs so employes less people. The inflation concerns are lessened as fewer people are employed, UK business positions remain pre-change but there are less jobs in the economy so this in turn drives wages down as the competition for places increases.

I'm not sure massive inflation or increased unemployment is a good thing.

Of course there does need to be a minimum after all people need to be able to afford to live. But the balancing is very difficult and the relations are not as simplistic as presented above.

[Mr Mystery]

Actually, no.

People should be paid the prices that the market can withstand, to do otherwise artificially inflates costs.

Imagine if we made minimum wage £100/hr, this is really good as minimum wage is brilliant!

But, what happens. Inflation, if you earn £100/hr, then the costs of things are going to rise, SAB Miller suggest that people are willing to work 30mins for a pint, so £50/pint it is, so we then have the rebalancing so £50 is what £3 was, 1666% inflation. So what he have done is nothing, well aside from put big smiles on people with mortgages faces, £100,000 mortgage is no devalued to £6000 in effect. Though obviously if you are a new buyer the cost of houses would jump by 1666%. The £ would rapidly fall against all other currencies to re-balance.

So what about a more modest increase what does this do.

Well one of two things (sometimes a combination of them)

1. The cost of the item/service goes up fractionally to absorb the cost again you have inflation concerns, given that this is just a UK wide thing, it makes UK business goods and services less competitive and drops orders, business closes and more unemployed.

2. An employer realising what occurs with 1. reduces their costs so employes less people. The inflation concerns are lessened as fewer people are employed, UK business positions remain pre-change but there are less jobs in the economy so this in turn drives wages down as the competition for places increases.

I'm not sure massive inflation or increased unemployment is a good thing.

Of course there does need to be a minimum after all people need to be able to afford to live. But the balancing is very difficult and the relations are not as simplistic as presented above.

Hence why it's creeping up to a living wage, slowly but surely. Well, until the Tories decide to freeze it to pay for another rich man's tax break.

I guess minimum wage is a bit like Buckaroo. Got to take it slowly and steadily.

[Psychosplodge]

Clearly that's an extreme example, but considering it'd be difficult/impossible to live on the minimum on a forty hour week...

[Wolfshade]

Clearly that's an extreme example, but considering it'd be difficult/impossible to live on the minimum on a forty hour week...

I'm sure I ran the numbers in another thread http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?25920-Living-wage-Really&highlight=minimum+wage hmm that was living wage, but with the increased bottom tax threshold it isn't too bad

[Deadlift]

Clearly that's an extreme example, but considering it'd be difficult/impossible to live on the minimum on a forty hour week...

Throw in the frequent claims that some family's are better off financially living off of benefits than earning minimum wage. I think that alone points to the minimum wage being to low ?

Or

Benefits too high ?

[Psychosplodge]

A combination of the two?

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Claiming that benefits are higher than wages, and thus should be lowered, is a race to the bottom mentality based on a fallacy. Wages in general are too low. They've been stagnant (ie. not increasing in line with productivity gains) for about thirty years in the UK/US (not coincidentally a period concurrent with the rise of neoliberal economics). Not because people are working less (often quite the reverse) or are less productive (definitely the reverse) but because of the rise of a neoliberal ideology - and it is ideology, it makes very little economic sense (even by the dismal standards of "economic sense" - economics being mostly a confidence-trick masquerading as science) which saw most of the productivity gains skimmed off to go to people at the very top. The illusion of growing wealth was maintained by cheap and easy credit, which thanks to the credit crunch, is no longer possible.

The very most ridiculous thing is that what should've happened with the post-70s productivity gains (through IT, mechanisation etc.) is that what used to be the goal in labourist thinking - being able to work less and earn more - actually became totally achievable for the majority of people. All those lovely gains were siphoned up to the very top, however, at the same time we were all told that we all need to work much harder for much less, for... obscure reasons, mostly wrapped in nationalism and preying on most people's general economic and political illiteracy.

How you get to a more reasonable state of affairs without smashing the current system apart and remaking it, or rejecting it altogether to do something else I have no idea, mind. The political classes have long since been captured by the super-rich, so incremental reformism is a non-starter. And the Tories are bad, but Labour presided over most of the reconfiguring of the economic system which got us into this mess in the first place.

[/rant!]

On the work programme, there are two main problems with it as I see it.

1. It erodes the absolute cornerstone of capitalist labour: you sell your precious time and effort to do somethign you wouldn't otherwise, on someone else's behalf, and in return you receive some compensation. Benefits aren't a compensation for work: they're there to tide you by while you can't get work. If you have to work in order to receive benefit, you should be paid for that work. If you have to do work in order to receive benefit, then why can't you just have the job? Because they'd have to pay you properly for it, in line with normal workplace rights! This is just a way for companies to get dirt-cheap staff, which leads to:

2. Perhaps more importantly, if you give a job for someone who is unemployed to do, then you are ensuring that someone else won't be paid to do that job. You're taking a job from someone else that they might be able to do so as not to need unemployment benefit, you're driving down wages and workplace rights to do it, and the whole sordid mess ends up in another race to the bottom.

You do a job, you get paid, end of.

[Wolfshade]

Rant redacted

[Psychosplodge]

*Redacted* as used redacted quote.

[Mr Mystery]

Thing is, you have to look at the origins.

Free Houses for pregnant teens were intended for those slung out by disapproving parents. Over time it has been much abused. But any changes made would severely impact some of the most vulnerable in society.

What we need to do is tackle the attitude that it's ok and fun to be a single Mum. It's not. You'll be permanently skint, and your child will want for many luxuries, if not necessities. Make it unattractive.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Alternatively, ensure that being a single parent isn't economically punished, or that people stay in loveless, sometimes even abusive relationships because they won't be able to survive otherwise. Why shouldn't everyone be allowed to live with dignity in a manner of their choosing (so long as nobody is hurt)? There's sure as hell enough resources to go around.

All of this stuff about benefits, single parents etc. is a distraction. These people aren't your enemies! Look elsewhere for the real scabs and scroungers. Politics in western liberal democracies revolves around the top 10% convincing the middle 30-40% that they hate and fear those below them more than they envy those above them.

[Wolfshade]

If only I could be given a free house for life because I had a one night stand.
My council tax paid for and without needing to pay rent.
Sigh.

[Wildeybeast]

Politics in western liberal democracies revolves around the top 10% convincing the middle 30-40% that they hate and fear those below them more than they envy those above them.

But my hate, fear and envy are all that sustain me in the long watches of the night. What will I do if you take those away from me?

[Psychosplodge]

But my hate, fear and envy are all that sustain me in the long watches of the night. What will I do if you take those away from me?

Invest in Gentleman's specialist literature instead?

[Wildeybeast]

Like Pipe Smoker Monthly?

[Psychosplodge]

I was thinking Ferret wrangler weekly, but sure why not.

[Wolfshade]

Psh, it's all about the Ringing World (http://www.ringingworld.co.uk/)

[Wildeybeast]

A mate of mine has ferrets so I can probably borrow his copy.

[Wildeybeast]

Psh, it's all about the Ringing World (http://www.ringingworld.co.uk/)

I thought for one horrible minute that was going to be NSFW. Has that been guest publication on HIGNFY yet?

[Psychosplodge]

I thought for one horrible minute that was going to be NSFW.

That would be worrying...

[Wolfshade]

I thought for one horrible minute that was going to be NSFW. Has that been guest publication on HIGNFY yet?

Yes, a long time ago

[Wildeybeast]

Glad to hear it.

[Denzark]

So, is everybody happy that, as well as a bespoke 6 bedroom house, this woman gets sufficient benefits to keep a b*stard horse? And gives nothing back to society? How is that just or fair? Or shuld all 70 million of us be given sufficient money to do so by the government?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9880720/Unemployed-mother-of-11-is-keeping-horse.html

[Deadlift]

She should turn the horse into lasagne to feed her spawn.

[Wolfshade]

'zark just posted that story else where.

There is a phrase about great minds...

[Psychosplodge]

So, is everybody happy that, as well as a bespoke 6 bedroom house, this woman gets sufficient benefits to keep a b*stard horse? And gives nothing back to society? How is that just or fair? Or shuld all 70 million of us be given sufficient money to do so by the government?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9880720/Unemployed-mother-of-11-is-keeping-horse.html

Not really, maybe they should have bought her a TV instead...

[Denzark]

It gets better....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9887410/Jobless-mother-of-11-Heather-Frost-spends-1000-on-an-exotic-parrot.html

[Wolfshade]

She said: "I usually spend £250 a week on food. We have everything large - Iceland do family meals. My kids eat anything, bangers and mash, lasagne, spaghetti and we always have a full Sunday roast.
Why so long in the face?

Maybe if she cooked from scratch she could reduce her food bill.

More importantly, what will happen when the government stop benefits for 3rd+ children...

[Psychosplodge]

More importantly, what will happen when the government stop benefits for 3rd+ children...

They'll be dragged through the ECHR as it will disproportionately affect ethnic minorities and the poor. And all the savings will vanish in legal aid.

[alshrive]

I AM PAYING FOR THAT BLOODY WOMAN TO HAVE A MACAW AND A HORSE!! Sorry but I do now feel entitled to either ride the Horse or Eat it seeing as I am helping pay for it!

[Wolfshade]

Well did they son have flying lessons>?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4805337/Dole-queen-mum-bought-flying-lessons-for-lover.html

[Psychosplodge]

Quite irritating as I wouldn't mind a Macaw.

[alshrive]

i am going to cross-breed the Horse and the Macaw and come up with the perfect pet for people on benefits The MacHorse! which coincidentally is a new Burger soon to feature at your local McDonalds!

[Wolfshade]

I don't think you have a wing or a mare to get that to work

[Psychosplodge]

Not again :rolleyes:

[Wolfshade]

You loved it.

[Psychosplodge]

But puns are for people that can't do sarcasm properly...

[Wolfshade]

http://uploads.neatorama.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/sarcasm01.jpg